Alistair MacLean Sea Thrillers 4-Book Collection: San Andreas, The Golden Rendezvous, Seawitch, Santorini

Patterson smiled slightly, a smile that did not touch the eyes. ‘I didn’t know you were in the Royal Navy, Bo’sun.’

‘Twelve years. For my sins.’

‘An excellent idea,’ Patterson said. ‘I’ll be your first customer.’ They made their way up a twisted but still serviceable companionway to the next deck, the Bo’sun with a bottle of rum and half a dozen mugs strung on a wire in the other. This was the crew accommodation deck and it was not a pretty sight. The passageway had a distinct S-bend to it, the deck was warped so that it formed a series of undulations. At the for’ard end of the passageway, two oxy-acetylene teams were at work, each attacking a buckled door. In the short space between the head of the companionway and where the men were working were eight doors, four of them hanging drunkenly on their hinges, four that had been cut open by torches: seven of those had been occupied, and the occupants were still there, twelve of them in all. In the eighth cabin they found Dr Sinclair, stooping over and administering a morphine injection to a prone but fully conscious patient, a consciousness that was testified to by the fact that he was addressing nobody in particular in an unprintable monologue.

The Bo’sun said: ‘How do you feel, Chips?’ Chips was Rafferty, the ship’s carpenter.

‘I’m dying.’ He caught sight of the rum bottle in the Bo’sun’s hand and his stricken expression vanished. ‘But I could make a rapid recovery –’

‘This man is not dying,’ Dr Sinclair said. ‘He has a simple fracture of the tibia, that’s all. No rum – morphine and alcohol make for bad bedfellows. Later.’ He straightened and tried to smile. ‘But I could do with a tot, if you would, Bo’sun – a generous one. I feel in need of it.’ With his strained face and pale complexion he unquestionably looked in need of it: nothing in Dr Sinclair’s brief medical experience had even remotely begun to prepare him for the experience he was undergoing. The Bo’sun poured him the requisite generous measure, did the same for Patterson and himself, then passed the bottle and mugs to the men with the torches and the two ward orderlies who were standing unhappily by, strapped stretcher at the ready: they looked in no better case than Dr Sinclair but cheered up noticeably at the sight of the rum.

The deck above held the officers’ accommodation. It too, had been heavily damaged, but not so devastatingly so as the deck below. Patterson stopped at the first cabin they came to: its door had been blown inwards and the contents of the cabin looked as if a maniac had been let loose there with a sledgehammer. The Bo’sun knew it was Chief Patterson’s cabin.

The Bo’sun said, ‘I don’t much care for being in an engine-room, sir, but there are times when it has its advantages.’ He looked at the empty and almost as badly damaged Second Engineer’s cabin opposite. ‘At least Ralson is not here. Where is he, sir?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘He’s dead,’ the Bo’sun repeated slowly.

‘When the bombs struck he was still in the seamen’s toilet fixing that short-circuit.’

‘I’m most damnably sorry, sir.’ He knew that Ralson had been Patterson’s only close friend aboard the ship.

‘Yes,’ Patterson said vaguely. ‘He had a young wife and two kids – babies, really.’

The Bo’sun shook his head and looked into the next cabin, that belonging to the Second Officer. ‘At least Mr Rawlings is not here.’

‘No. He’s not here. He’s up on the bridge.’ The Bo’sun looked at him, then turned away and went into the Captain’s cabin which was directly opposite and which, oddly enough, seemed almost undamaged. The Bo’sun went directly to a small wooden cupboard on the bulkhead, produced his knife, opened up the marlinspike and inserted its point just below the cupboard lock.

‘Breaking and entering, Bo’sun?’ The Chief Engineer’s voice held puzzlement but no reproof: he knew McKinnon well enough to know that the Bo’sun never did anything without a sound reason.

‘Breaking and entering is for locked doors and windows, sir. Just call this vandalism.’ The door sprang open and the Bo’sun reached inside, bringing out two guns. ‘Navy Colt 45s. You know about guns, sir?’

‘I’ve never held a gun in my hand in my life. You know about guns – as well as rum?’

‘I know about guns. This little switch here – you press it so. Then the safety-catch is off. That’s really all you require to know about guns.’ He looked at the broken cupboard and then the guns and shook his head again. ‘I don’t think Captain Bowen would have minded.’

‘Won’t. Not wouldn’t. Won’t.’

The Bo’sun carefully laid the guns on the Captain’s table. ‘You’re telling me that the Captain is not dead?’

‘He’s not dead. Neither is the Chief Officer.’

The Bo’sun smiled for the first time that morning, then looked accusingly at the Chief Engineer. ‘You might have told me this, sir.’

‘I suppose. I might have told you a dozen things. You would agree, Bo’sun, that we both have a great deal on our minds. They’re both in the sick bay, both pretty savagely burnt about the face but not in any danger, not, at least, according to Dr Singh. It was being far out on the port wing of the bridge that saved them – they were away from the direct effects of the blast.’

‘How come they got so badly burnt, sir?’

‘I don’t know. They can hardly speak, their faces are completely wrapped in bandages, they look more like Egyptian mummies than anything else. I asked the Captain and he kept mumbling something like Essex, or Wessex or something like that.’

The Bo’sun nodded. ‘Wessex, sir. Rockets. Distress flares. Two lots kept on the bridge. The shock must have triggered some firing mechanism and it went off prematurely. Damnable ill luck.’

‘Damnably lucky, if you ask me, Bo’sun. Compared to practically everybody else in the superstructure.’

‘Does he – does he know yet?’

‘It hardly seemed the time to tell him. Another thing he kept repeating, as if it was urgent. “Home signal, home signal,” something like that. Over and over again. Maybe his mind was wandering, maybe I couldn’t make him out. Their mouths are the only part of their faces that aren’t covered with bandages but even their lips are pretty badly burnt. And, of course, they’re loaded with morphine. “Home signal.” Mean anything to you?’

‘At the moment, no.’

A young and rather diminutive stoker appeared in the doorway. McCrimmon, in his middle twenties, was a less than lovable person, his primary and permanent characteristics being the interminable mastication of chewing gum, truculence, a fixed scowl and a filthy tongue: at that moment, the first three were in abeyance.

‘Bloody awful, so it is, down there. Just like a bloody cemetery.’

‘Morgue, McCrimmon, morgue,’ Patterson said. ‘What do you want?’

‘Me. Nothing, sir. Jamieson sent me. He said something about the phones no’ working and you would be wanting a runner, maybe.’

‘Second Engineer to you, McCrimmon.’ Patterson looked at the Bo’sun. ‘Very thoughtful of the Second Engineer. Nothing we require in the engine-room – except to get that jury rudder fixed. Deck-side, Bo’sun?’

‘Two look-outs, although God knows what they’ll be looking out for. Two of your men, sir, the two ward orderlies below, Able Seaman Ferguson and Curran. Curran is – used to be – a sailmaker. Don’t envy him his job but I’ll give him a hand. Curran will know what to bring. I suggest, sir, we have the crew’s mess-deck cleared.’

‘Our mortuary?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You heard, McCrimmon? How many men?’

‘Eight, sir.’

‘Eight. Two look-outs. The two seamen to bring up the canvas and whatever required. The other four to clear the crew’s mess. Don’t you try to tell them, they’d probably throw you overboard. Tell the Second Engineer and he’ll tell them. When they’ve finished have them report to me, here or on the bridge. You too. Off you go.’ McCrimmon left.

The Bo’sun indicated the two Colts lying on the table. ‘I wonder what McCrimmon thought of those.’

‘Probably old hat to him. Jamieson picked the right man – McCrimmon’s tough and hasn’t much in the way of finer feelings. Irish-Scots from some Glasgow slum. Been in prison. In fact, if it wasn’t for the war that’s probably where he’d be now.’

The Bo’sun nodded and opened another small wall locker – this one had a key to it. It was a small liquor cupboard and from a padded velvet retainer McKinnon removed a rum bottle and laid it on the Captain’s bunk.

‘I don’t suppose the Captain will mind that either,’ Patterson said. ‘For the stretcher-bearers?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The Bo’sun started opening drawers in the Captain’s table and found what he was looking for in the third drawer, two leather-bound folders which he handed to Patterson. ‘Prayer book and burial service, sir. But I should think the burial service would be enough. Somebody’s got to read it.’

‘Good God. I’m not a preacher, Bo’sun.’

‘No, sir. But you’re the officer commanding.’

‘Good God,’ Patterson repeated. He placed the folders reverently on the Captain’s table. ‘I’ll look at those later.’